Better
by ayahsad167
Summary: In a way, he was the unlucky one. She was gone, but he still felt the pain. Dark oneshot.


**Hey readers (and writers). This bit different from what I usually write, but I felt like writing something dark and angsty. This is the result.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Phineas and Ferb.**

* * *

**Empty: Containing nothing; not filled or occupied.**

Not filled or occupied. Yes, that was a good way to describe him. All his emotions had been leeched out of him over the course of the past few months, little by little. Until this...his body, his empty husk (another fitting description)...was left. Not filled or occupied.

Phineas didn't cry. He had cried himself out long ago. No, the truest form of his pain manifested itself in other ways.

The despair was rising in him again. Insurmountable as a tidal wave, and just as powerful. He knew by then that he couldn't resist it, so he just closed his eyes and began to remember.

...

"Phineas..." Isabella's whisper reached his ears, but it left no impression on him. Like a glass of water being thrown onto a rock. He heard his name, but he didn't process it.

"Phineas..."

He felt empty. Not in a hopeless way, though. It was more of a floating feeling, like there was actually nothing in him. In a way, it was almost peaceful. He was detached from everything around him, a balloon rising higher and higher.

"Phineas..." The insistent, almost pleading voice that Isabella spoke in finally brought him down to earth, tugging on his string until he finally deflated. There was a kind of whooshing he felt, not really physical, but a vertigo-like sense that took hold of him for a second. Then the second was over, the world righted again.

"Yes, Isabella?" The words came out monotonous, almost melancholy, and Phineas immediately retracted them, berating himself. _What am I doing? I'm supposed to be making her feel...feel more peaceful. And her I am ignoring her._

He forced himself to repeat himself, this time making sure to incorporate a fitting amount of cheerfulness. "Yes, Isabella? You need something?"

"I need..." Isabella's voice was hoarse and ragged. She cleared her throat. "Pass me the water?"

Phineas got up from his seat and stood shakily. It had a been a few hours since he had last stretched his legs. Walking slowly over to the table, next to Isabella, making sure not to disturb her bed, he poured some water from the plastic pitcher into the plastic cup.

Bending over, he held it down to Isabella. With trembling, pale white hands, the girl took the cup and began to drink. One small sip. Another small sip. Anoth-

The cup slipped from her hands and fell sideways onto the blanket she was under. Phineas quickly took it and bundled it up, making sure not to let any liquid drip onto the bed's occupant. Lifting it slowly, he walked over to the corner of the room and deposited it onto the cold tiled floor. He glanced around the room, looking for some spare linen supplies.

"Don't bother, Phineas. I don't want another one."

"Oh." With nothing left to do, he slowly walked over to Isabella's bed. His gaze slowly took in her appearance. His childhood friend's skin was an unhealthy pallor, almost translucent. Under her eyes looked bruised, her figure was gaunt, her body trembling.

It was hard to relate this girl to the same one that he had been friends with for 9 years. There was no adorable smile, no pink dress on her. Instead, a white, nondescript outfit that Phineas couldn't identify made up her attire.

_She doesn't even have her bow,_ Phineas thought with an emotion too difficult to describe.

"I don't want it," Isabella had said when her mother had brought it to her bedside in the hopes that it would give her daughter a little comfort. "It brings back too many memories. I don't want to think about what could've been if-"

Quickly Phineas annihilated the memory. Before he remembered what she said next.

Standing beside her bed, he felt his nose began to throb, always a surefire sign that he was close to tears. Digging his short nails into his palms, he forced himself not to lose his composure. He dug deeper, and deeper...but still they began to come. _No! I can't do this to her. I need to be strong._

That line was trite and cliché, but he didn't care. Maybe he might have rolled his eyes if he'd seen it in some angsty chick-flick, but now that he was here, experiencing firsthand what it felt like to be so close to breaking down...

He forced himself to grit back the tears, and slowly his fists unclenched. In a way, it was easier being strong for her than for himself.

He refocused his attention on Isabella, lying stationary on the bed, shallow breaths coming periodically. She was lying on her side, away from him, facing the window while curled up. Phineas sat down hesitantly on the edge of the bed.

"Do you want me to do anything?" he asked. Useless question, but he could think of nothing else to say.

Isabella remained silent, though he could hear the soft sounds of her shifting on the bed. Finally, she slowly turned towards him, looking up from her position on the bed with a stoic expression on her face.

"Phineas?" He leaned closer to hear her better. "Remember when we were small? Like, 6? Remember that day when we were at the park? The day when Ferb had to go to the dentist, and it was just my mom and us? Remember when we were on the monkey bars, and I couldn't climb all of them, so you held my..."

And then, just like that, Isabella started sobbing, just sobbing, tears pouring out faster than he thought possible, nose running, holding her head because the crying was so painful.

Phineas didn't even think about it. Faster than a lightning flash he was at her side, pulling her trembling body in, wrapping his arms around her waist. Weeping with her, eyes closed, her hair absorbing his tears. Not caring about being strong, because frankly, he couldn't bear it any longer. Her soft sobs were drowned out by his cries, almost wails, like he was the one who was in pain.

Like _he_ was the one about to die.

Her arms managed to sneak out from between his body and hers to wrap themselves around him, and for the moment, it was just the two of them alone in the world, perfectly one in their utter despair. Her tears were seeping through his shirt, her arms gripping as tightly as her weak frame was able to.

Through her tears, Isabella began to wail, heartbreakingly. Shouts and cries, pleas and coughs and whispers fraught with disbelief. Why, she asked, and yelled, and mumbled, and Phineas didn't have an answer.

Her screams turned into unintelligble moanings, distraught words from a girl who was about to die. On and on and on and on-

...

After an eternity that was too short she finally stopped. Her face was still buried in his chest, her breaths slow and almost nonexistent. Minutes passed. Or hours. Or years. Phineas couldn't tell. He wasn't aware of anything except the girl lying in his arms.

She spoke after a while. "Phineas," Isabella whispered hoarsely. "I can't do this."

And that's when the coughing started. Coarse, grating, chest heaving coughs, worse than any she'd done before. Wide eyed with shock, Phineas shot up in a panic to get the hospice nurse, but Isabella's hands grabbed him with the last of her strength.

She was shaking her head, vigorously, all the while hacking and wheezing violently. With a sense of growing horror, he realized that she wanted him to stay.

"No, no! I have to get help, I can't let you-"

But she was still shaking her head, her moments starting to become convulsions. With her trembling hands still gripping his shirt, she looked at him, and that look told him all that he needed to know. She didn't want help. She wanted him by her side.

And he couldn't deny her that. Closing his ears, tears threatening to seep through his eyelids, he lay back down on the bed.

...

Phineas was there as she coughed, heaving, shaking the bed.

He was there when she started the mucus she was coughing up became mixed with blood.

He was there when the hospice nurse came rushing into the room and dragged him out of her arms.

He was there when Isabella's mother ran into the room, eyes filled eith tears because she knew that it was time.

He was there when the nurse gave Isabella medication and then sedated her.

He was there for hours after that, waiting in that hospice room with Ms. Garcia-Shapiro, with his family, with Isabella's friends.

At 3:37 a.m., she died in her sleep.

...

After they took her body, after the wake, after the funeral, after the _real_ goodbyes, he started disappearing. It happened slowly, little bits of himself dying off one by one like blades of grass in the winter.

One day a smile would be less vibrant, another day a hug less tender, happiness more forced. It wasn't blatant or overt, but he started distancing himself from people. His family, his friends, even himself in a strange way. He was a planet drifting farther and farther out of the orbit of those he loved, steadily growing farther apart until eventually he would drift away, floating aimlessly in space.

He told himself that he was okay, that as each day passed he was slowly getting over her death. And it was true that he was making an effort to drag himself out of the hole of loneliness he had dug himself into. But some days, the effort wasn't enough.

He didn't think he would ever forget about how she died. For now, though, he would just try to remember how to keep living.

Some days were better than others.


End file.
